


good riddance

by siddals



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siddals/pseuds/siddals
Summary: Caroline and Charlotte, in the Howard townhouse once more.





	good riddance

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "good riddance" on tumblr.

She has never kissed before.

Caroline has  _been_ kissed, her mouth crushed by too many teeth, a gesture seeming more designed to silence her than give her pleasure. But she has never kissed, done more than tighten her teeth and endure. She wonders, faintly, if she is any good at it. George had made it clear he didn’t think her good for much, as these matters went.

Charlotte breaks away, a sigh escaping her full lips. Looking at her mouth, red and swollen, with traces of paint smeared across her jaw, Caroline wants only to kiss her again.

“Strange being back here,” Charlotte says, with a faint laugh, her eyes training up the stairwell.

Caroline is surprised she can laugh. She has no doubt that Charlotte is as glad for George’s death as she is, as soon as she had known she would not face the noose. But there must be memories here, unpleasant ones, as Caroline has her own. (Had she killed him here, her hands around his neck, the Irishman’s knife?It doesn’t bear thinking of.)

“I’m sorry,” Caroline says, “I didn’t know where else we could go.”

Charlotte shrugs.

“It’s all right,” she says, “Your house now.”

“The house isn’t mine to keep,” Caroline says softly, “It’s been in the Howard family for generations. Sir George’s cousin is his heir. He’s giving me a few weeks to compose myself in my grief before I must go.”

Grief hits hard against her mouth, a slight sneer. She cannot say this anywhere else - to anyone else. Caroline wouldn’t have imagined herself capable of this, about to take a woman of the town up to her bedroom, in her husband’s house. But somehow, she thinks, is it any wonder they’re here?

Charlotte frowns.

“But you have a place to go?”

It is strange to see Charlotte Wells, who Caroline has been well informed crawled up from London’s gutter, concerned about  _her_. She has no need to feel such concern. Caroline is a respected widow, well provided for, with funds enough that she need not even marry again. Charlotte, within days of leaving jail, had entered another bawdy house. Or so Caroline had heard - the details of such things are scarce and scant, for a lady’s ears. She had never had reason to pay attention before.

“Yes,” Caroline says, “My mother. She lives here in London too.”

“You get along then, you and your ma?”

Martha Doyle was always ‘mama’, when Caroline was growing up, or ‘mother’, when she reached womanhood. It’s strange, hearing her spoken of this way, but Caroline doesn’t mind the familiarity. It almost makes her feel as though they are not so different.

“We do,” Caroline says. She has missed her mother, since her marriage. Martha is not an effusive woman, nor prone to showing feeling, but there is a steadiness in her that Caroline has always sought to emulate.

Still, the notion of going back home, of slinking off, makes her feel uneasy. Will things return to the way they once were, with her few friends and her books, her piano and her mother? Caroline was happy then, she thinks, far happier than she ever was as a married woman. But now it feels almost dull.

Will she see Charlotte again? Will they disappear into their own separate worlds, never again to meet?

“Good,” Charlotte says, her voice sounding almost wistful, “Then you have a home.”

Caroline nods, slightly, and moves forward to kiss Charlotte again. There is a sweetness on her lips, something light that Caroline cannot define. She feels almost dizzy.

“Would you like to go upstairs?” she asks.

As ever, she is herself. No seduction, no artifice. She hopes that will be enough for Charlotte.

“You have your own room?” Charlotte asks, “When you stayed here? Not Sir George’s? One that’s only yours?”

Caroline nods.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go there,” Charlotte says, and leads her upward by the hand.


End file.
